


Everybody Else

by straeon



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straeon/pseuds/straeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert's reaction to everybody else's reactions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody Else

**Author's Note:**

> Set when Robron are together in an optimistic future. Written ages ago so certainly not canon compliant with the actual reactions, or what we've seen of them so far.

When everybody found out about them, the whole fucking village full of gossips and judgements from completely messed up hypocrites, where the only thing you could never get was privacy or undisturbed internet, Robert realised there was a pattern in their reactions. 

Well, first he realised he was hated by everyone, especially his former family who were out for revenge, while his lover/former lover (sometimes both?) was just as much out to get him. But other than that and the standard, very expected comments about what a cheat he was, the whispers as he walked by, or the intentionally loud digs about him, he realised just about no one was on his side. There were people who felt for Chrissie, others who had been cheated on, since that definitely wasn’t lacking in this surprisingly sordid village (or not that surprising when, just like him, not everyone was contented doing nothing with their life but farming, and sometimes sought their thrills in the quiet village elsewhere - maybe if they even had a cinema, it would be different, or maybe it was just human nature continuing to get them all into bother). 

And Aaron was the village’s darling and though many were shocked that he could be as bad as the rest of them, could forget his morals, not just in the usual violent ways, but even to get so low as to carry on an affair with a married man for that many months. Robert guessed it was at least to Aaron’s advantage that he wasn’t the only one in the village, even at the time, who had erred in similar, or soon worse, ways. The Emmerdale village cheats might as well have started a club meeting bi-weekly, though he wasn’t sure if it would some sort of sex addicts anonymous club or trading tips on how to not get caught and nearly get the whole village blown up next time. 

Having people out for his blood dulled the judgement from some people. “I _suppose_ if I was married to an attempted murderess, I might stray too - but then, he didn’t know that at the time, did he?” And they would be right, he didn’t. Chrissie might have been the most vengeful wife he ever could have been so idiotic as to cheat on but it was never her fault he cheated, it was him, and he didn’t wish for Aaron to be judged for it as much as him, since after all Aaron hadn’t cheated on anybody himself. He was probably the only person in the village who hadn’t, good on him for only sleeping with one married man in his life and having the decency to not be stringing anyone else along at the same time. 

Anyway, what Robert really noticed, however, was how nobody was shocked for long about his choice of side lover. Of course there were some who took a moment, realising Aaron was certainly a man, before giving a “hmm” while eyeing Robert up, before getting on with their day. And there were others who liked to waste his time shooting comments at him such as “So are ya gay nor or whut?” (To which Robert had learned to not get in their face over their ignorance and to reply with something along the lines of “Sorry, you’re not my type, so”, and the ones who were most uncomfortable faced with all this gayness and bisexuality usually muttered something and walked away, some faster than others while panicking who the local bi pervert might pounce on next.) 

Chrissie had made some comment of; “You cheated on me, your successful, loaded, beautiful wife, as idiotic as I was to take you back, with the local mechanic?!” Which basically, yes. Lawrence certainly had many, many comments on that, and their judgements about _who_ he’d slept with seemed to come from not so much a place of homophobia or biphobia but from their bruised pride - he cheated on _us_ , the rich as God blessed Whites, and it wasn’t even for somebody richer?! 

The rest of the village, however, seemed to get that better than anything. Any of them would have left the toxic Whites long ago - that Robert didn’t only seemed to make it obvious how desperate for money and success he was, how corrupted he was and how he deserved the likes of them. Some reacted with a look or a head tilt or an actual “oh” that seemed to say “Oh, that makes sense.” Having a side piece definitely would make living with such people more tolerable. Robert sometimes wondered if it had been about that at times; if he’d escaped from Home Farm when it felt like too much to bear, like the pollution might suffocate him, if he went to Aaron, who could look at him with such goodness and even innocence, though it made even him feel guilty when he seemed naive enough to think Robert could choose him (at least back then); if he went to Aaron to forget about the sort of people he dealt with on a day-to-day basis, maybe to remember that there were still good people that would still have him. Just that could’ve been addicting, the only glimmer of hope in his tainted soul seeming to be Aaron and his own to love someone for no reason other than for them, without being concerned with the bonuses of a job, money or mansion.

None of which made anyone think that Robert could be too good for Aaron, that Aaron could be punching above his weight with someone with flash cars and suits (at least Robert thought they were flash? most of them he missed now). Maybe Aaron though that sometimes, maybe he wondered what Robert could see in him (maybe he always wondered why people wanted him in any way at all). But anyone else could see that Aaron was too good for Robert. In every way, he was too good for him and how Robert could have made him lower himself to his level, they didn’t know. It could’ve been less about Robert and more to do with rebellion, or to forget all the shit he’d gone through in his short life, the heartbreaks in his thunderous love life, that was often nothing but a constant rain storm on his life and on his soul. A part of Robert hoped that that had been why he’d gone for him, to forget like Robert wanted to forget, so that at least they were both using each other in a way, maybe both using the other for escapism to some extent. If that had been all it was for both of them at first, Robert wouldn’t have cared. At least they both got what they wanted from it and it was nothing more. But the no strings bullshit had always been just that. 

That they fell in love was obvious to people who rolled their eyes at them, who gossipped behind their backs, or right in front of them, and to those who tried to ruin their lives for what they’d done (maybe it was especially obvious to them). It nearly seemed a shame, to many, that Aaron would fall for someone like him when he could do so much better. That Robert was even capable of love was a shock to many without consideration of the gender of who he fell for - sometimes that was most shocking to him. Aaron brought back that side of him, if it ever had existed before - he expected that from Robert, even, that he would be capable of loving him back, and that was why Robert knew better than anyone that Aaron really was too good for him. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. 

“You know, everyone thinks I should be rid of you already,” Aaron had told him, when it was all out, when most of the reactions, most for the worst, were over. When they were still trying to find where they actually stood now. “All this, everything that’s happened… I don’t think I’m ever going to convince anyone that it’s worth it, to be with you.” He’d shook his head, his elbows resting on his parted knees as he looked down with a thoughtful frown while Robert watched him, knowing his place was still as unsteady and turbulent as it had been since this had all come out. But at least now he knew where it was he wanted to be.

“When everyone keeps telling you the same thing, you start to wonder if it’s actually all of them who are right, and I’m still fooling myself,” Aaron continued, looking up at Robert as if he searched for an answer in his watchful blue eyes, as if he didn’t always just see vulnerability that nobody else could see in them more than anything. 

“They are,” Robert said with a smile. “Surely you realise that by now. You are too good for me, being with me is way more trouble than it’s worth and I am a right wrong'un who deserves the little old ladies hitting me with their sticks whenever I step out the door.”

“Then what?” Aaron asked, his brow frowning in puzzlement, seeing through Robert’s lightness that he really did believe that, what a bad person he was, more than anybody. “Am I supposed to give up on you? Is that what you want?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Robert said sincerely. Truly, nothing scared him more now than if Aaron would come to his senses and leave him and he really would be all alone again.

“Then why do I stay with you when you think it’s such a known fact that you’re not good enough for me?” Aaron asked, frustrated that he might have put himself and his family and loved ones through so much for someone who, after all of it, didn’t even believe in them himself.

“Because you love me,” Robert answered, as if it was obvious, and he took Aaron forgot his doubts (well, most of them) when he felt the warmth of Robert’s hand over his, stopping his nervous fidgeting. “You’re a complete idiot for that, probably, but why should we give that up because of what other people think?” 

“I’m _definitely_ an idiot for loving you,” Aaron corrected him, leaning closer into Robert’s face. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned through… everything,” he continued, a dark cloud spreading over his facial features, as they often did when he thought about the past. He lived with it, all of it, and Robert had always seen how strong and brave he could be and admired that; envied it when he was such a coward himself. “It’s that what matters most is who you love. When I was coming out, Paddy told me how I shouldn’t deny myself that, being in love, and that’s always stuck with me. Being with the people I love is what’s mattered most to me and that doesn’t change, even if other people don’t always remember that. I’m not planning on denying myself this - and I’m glad that you’re not any more either.” 

“Thank you,” Robert said, entangling his long fingers with Aaron’s. 

“For what?” Aaron asked.

“Well, it’s because of you, isn’t it? That I get to be in love, that I’m not ‘denying myself’ any more…”

“I know,” Aaron said, without humbleness in his side smile. “But you should give yourself some credit too. You stuck around, you proved yourself, to me and to them, your family, when you could’ve run away - that’s down to you too.”

“I didn’t go through all this to not get to be with you at the end of it,” Robert told him and he meant it and honestly, it was worth it for this, for him. 

“They’ll come around,” Aaron had said about his own family, about most of the people who cared about him who told him he could do better and that he deserved better, when he knew that this, being with the man he loved, was exactly what he deserved. “And if they don’t, they can stick it.”


End file.
